Heart Of Glass
by PepperF
Summary: Jack slowed the bike to a crawl as he passed the woman for the third time, but she still didn't look up. Jack and Sara fic.


_A/N: From a prompt: "How Jack met Sara." _

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Jack slowed the bike to a crawl as he passed the woman for the third time, but she still didn't look up. So he stopped, and let the engine idle, pushing down the kick-stand with his foot, propping one foot on the ground, and hoping to hell that the wind hadn't blown his brown hair into some freaky formation, and that he looked cool, in a James Dean kinda way. At least he'd put on his best leather jacket this morning - that had been a stroke of luck. "Hey!" he called. She still didn't look up. "HEY!" At last she glanced up, and he composed his face into his most charming smile. "Hi."

She looked blankly at him through large, concealing sunglasses. "Uh, hi." She pushed back a stray strand of dark blonde hair. The rest was back in a high ponytail, hooking slightly over one bared shoulder. The other shoulder was hidden in the depths of her bright red wide-neck sweater. He liked the look of that sweater. It had definite potential.

"You're kinda absorbed there, huh?" he asked, nodding at the book. She looked down at it, and back up again, a small frown appearing behind her sunglasses.

"Yeah," she said.

Man, this chick was hard work. But she also had long, long legs, in tight blue jeans, curled under her on the grass, and a tiny green-painted ghetto blaster playing tinny Debbie Harry. Besides, Jack O'Neill liked a challenge. "You at college here?" She looked a little older than the average college student, but it was a fair guess, given that she was parked outside on the college lawn, reading.

"Yeah," she said, and finally seemed to feel that her terseness might be construed as a bit rude. "Studying to become a teacher."

"Masters?" he asked, hoping to sound intelligent, or at least to flatter her. Apparently it didn't work, because she pressed her lips together and looked annoyed.

"Just a degree," she said, flatly.

Jack shoved a hand through his hair. Maybe it was too flat? Too windblown? "Uh, listen, I'm new in town, and was wondering if someone could tell me where the good nightspots are?" God, that was absolutely the lamest pickup line he'd ever come up with. But he was feeling a little intimidated by her sunglasses' blank stare.

She looked down, put a finger in her book to mark her place, and closed it - rather pointedly showing him that he'd interrupted her. "I dunno..." she said, hesitantly.

"Oh, you've gotta know somewhere," he said, cajolingly. "Where d'you like to go?"

She shrugged. "You wouldn't like it," she said.

"Hey, how d'you know what I wouldn't like?" he protested.

She looked up and looked him over, and smiled a small, frustratingly knowledgeable smile. "You just don't look like it'd be your kinda place," she said, gently. Jack instantly had a mental image of a startlingly sophisticated, avant-garde sort of establishment, serving coffee and cocktails, and crammed full of lecturers in black berets, discussing Sartre. Which, if he was honest, really wasn't his sort of place, but damned if he was going to admit that to this frustrating woman.

"I might surprise you," he said, instead.

She caved at last. "The Blue Lagoon," she confessed. "It's on the corner of First and St Helena's."

Jack grinned. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?" he said, chidingly. "Now the hundred-dollar question: When are you next going there?"

She gave him what was probably a hard stare. "Are you asking me on a date?" she asked, point-blank.

"Yes," he said, equally as baldly - fed up of beating around the bush, and deciding he might as well just find out there and then whether she was going to turn him down.

"Tomorrow. Nine PM," she said, in a rush.

Wow. He blinked at her for a moment, not sure if he'd heard correctly. "Tomorrow?"

"Nine PM," she confirmed.

"I'll be there," he said, quickly. He kicked the kick-stand away, and fumbled blindly at the ignition for a moment before realising that he hadn't turned it off. He revved the bike, and then remembered something. "Oh! What's your name?"

She looked up from the book she'd opened again. "Sara," she said.

He nodded to her. "Sara. See you tomorrow, Sara," he said. "Nine PM."

He kept one eye on her in the mirror as he drove away. She was watching him. She was definitely watching him.

---

"Oh my god. Oh my fucking god."

Once he'd disappeared, Sara closed the book, and collapsed back onto the grass, tugging off her sunglasses and staring at the sky. The most gorgeous man she'd ever seen in her entire life had just asked her on a date. To the goddamn Blue Lagoon, of all places - the most run-down, cheesy student bar in the history of student bars. Why, why hadn't she said she liked someplace cooler?

Well, obviously because her brains had dribbled out of her ears when he'd given her that little Rebel Without A Cause grin. Fuck. This was going to be such a disaster. What the hell had he wanted with her - mousy Sara Reeves, with her medium-color hair and her medium-blue eyes, and her medium grade looks?

Oh god. She hadn't got a thing to wear. Well, she had plenty that was appropriate for going to the Blue Lagoon, but unfortunately nothing that was appropriate for going out with such a slice of handsomeness. On a _motorbike_. Christ.

She slapped a hand to her face. She needed backup, and she needed it now.

Shit, and she'd _completely _forgotten to ask his name.

---

By half-past nine, Major Jack O'Neill was beginning to feel like a complete loser. He stared morosely around the Blue Lagoon - which had turned out not be half as intimidating as he'd expected - and wondered if she'd agreed to meet him just to get rid of him, or if she'd decided later that he wasn't worth the-

"Hi, I'm _so _sorry I'm late, I spilled nail varnish everywhere, and my dad called, and then traffic was _awful_..."

He looked up, startled, in the middle of swigging his beer, and half of it went down the wrong way. Coughing half his drink over the table proved, fortunately, to be an effective ice-breaker, and he discovered within a short space of time that she had a lovely smile, blue eyes that sparkled when she laughed, and a similar sense of humour to his own. And she looked goddamn gorgeous in that electric blue dress that clung in all the right places. Yeah. It was even better than the red sweater.

She looked startled when he casually let drop his rank, and explained that he hadn't come across as the military type. When he'd enquired further, she surprised him by telling him her version of events - which was totally different from how he'd perceived it. He smirked at her when she'd confessed she'd been tongue-tied by the gorgeous guy on a motorbike. She rolled her eyes, and laughed at them both.

By midnight, he was head over heels.

Eight weeks later, they were married.

Two years after that, they had a baby boy.

And eleven years after that, Jack returned to an empty house from the most astonishing mission of his life, and stood in the hall, staring at the depopulated coat rack, wondering where half his life had gone.

---

END.


End file.
